For more than two centuries, Californians have been cultivating grapes. The tradition of viticulture began in 1769 when Spanish friars - mostly Franciscans - established missions throughout the region. The padres planted a European grape variety, known as the Mission, in order to make sacramental wine. Native American wild grapes of the type Vitis girdiana grew along California stream banks, but these grapes were sour and of little use for winemaking. The Old World origins of the Mission grape are obscure, but the variety also had been planted in Mexico for the same purpose.

The friars brought other Mediterranean produce items such as figs and olives that, along with the grapes, flourished in the warm, dry climates of Southern and Central California.

As the century passed and more settlers came to California, additional varieties of European grapes were introduced, some for winemaking, others for eating fresh, and still others for making raisins. All of these European introductions were varieties of the species Vitis vinifera. This Old World species was first cultivated as early as 6000 B.C. in the region between the Black and Caspian Seas near northern Iran.

In California, the boom in grapes planted for fresh eating came in the early 1800s when a number of intrepid settlers recognized the untapped agricultural possibilities of the then-Mexican territory. A former trapper, William Wolfskill, planted the first table grape vineyard in 1839 on pueblo land near present-day Los Angeles.

By the 1850s, the United States had officially acquired California from Mexico and 80,000 gold prospectors had moved to the region, a few of them recognizing that there was money in grapes as well as ore. The state's infant agricultural society declared, "Capital put into vineyards would bring greater rewards than when outlayed in fluming rivers for golden treasures."

The pronouncement was correct. Today, California wine, table grapes and raisins are all important agricultural commodities, with approximately 700,000 acres planted in vineyards. In the United States, 99 percent of commercially grown table grapes are from California.